On this promotional still from «The Forest of the Lost Souls», Carolina (Daniela Love) looks as if she’s resting. Everything about her pose — her gloved hand clutching her necklace; her gently crossed ankles; her right hand with its gracefully curved fingers — suggests that she is momentarily quiet, perhaps thinking of her plans for later in the day, or daydreaming of her beau. Or maybe not.

This is a recreation of the iconic photograph of Evelyn McHale by Robert Miles, originally published by LIFE magazine in 1947. This picture remains, seven decades later, one of the most famous portraits of suicide ever made. The woman in the photo was 23-year-old Evelyn McHale. Not much is known of her life, or of her final hours.
But beyond the mystery of Evelyn McHale’s life and death, there is the equally profound mystery of how a single photograph of a dead woman can feel so technically rich, visually compelling and—it must be said—so downright beautiful so many years after it was made. There’s a reason, after all, why she is often referred to as “the most beautiful suicide”; why Andy Warhol appropriated Wiles’ picture for his Suicide: Fallen Body (1962); why once we look, it’s so hard to look away.
For its part, LIFE magazine captioned the picture with language that veers strikingly from the poetic to the elemental: “At the bottom of Empire State Building the body of Evelyn McHale reposes calmly in grotesque bier her falling body punched into the top of a car.”